NBA: With the Sixers on draft night, expect the unexpected

PHILADELPHIA — Last year, Nerlens Noel had hired a tailor to stitch a Kentucky jersey into the lining of his spiffy suit jacket. Noel expected he’d have the chance to show off his interior threads from the stage of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center when the name of the first overall pick was read.

Nope. Maybe with the second pick then? Or perhaps the third? No luck there, either. Noel wasn’t taken off the NBA Draft board until New Orleans swiped him at No. 6, then shipped him to the 76ers in an epic trade.

Noel knows what those in the 2014 draft class do not: Expect the unexpected.

“I’ve watched as much college hoops as I can,” said Noel, the Sixers center. “It’s hard to think I was in (this) draft class when I was in high school in 2013. I played with a lot of those guys. It was exciting to watch those guys and see them embark on making their dream come true, entering the draft.

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“However it goes this summer for us, I’m definitely excited and waiting for whatever young guys we choose and bringing them in with open arms.”

The not-so-harsh reality is that no one knows what will take place Thursday night at the NBA Draft, for which the Sixers hold seven picks. More than luck will be at play for Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie, on what has become his busiest day of the year:

» The numbers game. The Sixers are believed to have attended or hosted workouts of more than 60 players. Sixty. Some would ask, ‘Why so many?’ Hinkie would not be one of them. “You better know what it is you need to know,” Hinkie said in an interview last month with 94.1 WIP. Hinkie has said that draft workouts are an opportunity to gather information about players in a draft class, either by watching them run drills or by speaking with them interview-style afterward. He said the report card garnered by such encounters is invaluable, both in the present and further down the road, when a particular player is available via free agency or trade. So Hinkie has done his homework in anticipation of the draft.

» The trade game. If anything was gleaned from the 2013 draft, Hinkie’s first as the Sixers’ GM, it’s that he is not afraid to make a splash. Nobody would be shocked if Hinkie made a play for a higher pick within the top-10 slots, or paired a handful of the Sixers’ five second-round choices to nab someone of interest. In all, Hinkie and the Sixers negotiated four draft-night deals in 2013, including the one for Noel’s rights. Posting a similar number of trades on the draft board this time around is almost expected of Hinkie.

» The waiting game. The Sixers’ higher-profile picks are the first-rounders, but the fun doesn’t end when the second round begins. Hinkie will have five second-round choices at the ready. As indicated earlier, he could package a few to slide up a few spots, or to acquire the rights to a player on whom he’s had his eye. Second-round choices, as Hinkie has said previously, are the NBA’s most-tradeable commodity, so don’t be surprised if he moves one or more to get what he wants.

Moral of the story, Sixers fans? Expect the unexpected when it comes to draft night.